No Arabic abstract
A unified theoretical model reproducing charge radii of known atomic nuclei plays an essential role to make extrapolations in the regions of unknown nuclear size. Recently developed new ansatz which phenomenally takes into account the neutron-proton short-range correlations (np-SRCs) can describe the discontinuity properties and odd-even staggering (OES) effect of charge radii along isotopic chains remarkably well. In this work, we further review the modified rms charge radii formula in the framework of relativistic mean field (RMF) theory. The charge radii are calculated along various isotopic chains that include the nuclei featuring the $N=50$ and $82$ magic shells. Our results suggest that RMF with and without considering correction term give almost similar trend of nuclear size for some isotopic chains with open proton shell, especially the shrink phenomena of charge radii at strong neutron closed shells and the OES behaviors. This suggests that the np-SRCs has almost no influence for some nuclei due to the strong coupling between different levels around Fermi surface. The weakening OES behavior of nuclear charge radii is observed generally at completely filled neutron shells and this may be proposed as a signature of magic indicator.
The FRS-ESR facility at GSI provides unique conditions for precision measurements of large areas on the nuclear mass surface in a single experiment. Values for masses of 604 neutron-deficient nuclides (30<=Z<=92) were obtained with a typical uncertainty of 30 microunits. The masses of 114 nuclides were determined for the first time. The odd-even staggering (OES) of nuclear masses was systematically investigated for isotopic chains between the proton shell closures at Z=50 and Z=82. The results were compared with predictions of modern nuclear models. The comparison revealed that the measured trend of OES is not reproduced by the theories fitted to masses only. The spectral pairing gaps extracted from models adjusted to both masses, and density related observables of nuclei agree better with the experimental data.
We explore the systematics of odd-even mass staggering with a view to identifying the physical mechanisms responsible. The BCS pairing and mean field contributions have A- and number parity dependencies which can help disentangle the different contributions. This motivates the two-term parametrization c_1 + c_2/A as a theoretically based alternative to the inverse power form traditionally used to fit odd-even mass differences. Assuming that the A-dependence of the BCS pairing is weak, we find that mean-field contributions are dominant below mass number A~40 while BCS pairing dominates in heavier nuclei.
The mesoscopic nature of the atomic nucleus gives rise to a wide array of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena. The size of the nucleus is a window into this duality: while the charge radii globally scale as $A^{1/3}$, their evolution across isotopic chains reveals unanticipated structural phenomena [1-3]. The most ubiquitous of these is perhaps the Odd-Even Staggering (OES) [4]: isotopes with an odd number of neutrons are usually smaller in size than the trend of their even-neutron neighbours suggests. This OES effect varies with the number of protons and neutrons and poses a significant challenge for nuclear theory [5-7]. Here, we examine this problem with new measurements of the charge radii of short-lived copper isotopes up to the very exotic $^{78}$Cu $(Z=29, N=49)$, produced at only 20 ions/s, using the highly-sensitive Collinear Resonance Ionisation Spectroscopy (CRIS) method at ISOLDE-CERN. Due to the presence of a single proton outside of the closed Z=28 shell, these measurements provide crucial insights into the single-particle proton structure and how this affects the charge radii. We observe an unexpected reduction in the OES for isotopes approaching the $N=50$ shell gap. To describe the data, we applied models based on nuclear Density Functional Theory [2,8] (DFT) and ab-initio Valence-Space In-Medium Similarity Renormalization Group (VS-IMSRG) theory [9,10]. Through these comparisons, we demonstrate a relation between the global behavior of charge radii and the saturation density of nuclear matter, and show that the local charge radii variations, which reflect the many-body polarization effects due to the odd neutron, naturally emerge from the VS-IMSRG calculations.
The kernel ridge regression (KRR) approach is extended to include the odd-even effects in nuclear mass predictions by remodulating the kernel function without introducing new weight parameters and inputs in the training network. By taking the WS4 mass model as an example, the mass for each nucleus in the nuclear chart is predicted with the extended KRR network, which is trained with the mass model residuals, i.e., deviations between experimental and calculated masses, of other nuclei with known masses. The resultant root-mean-square mass deviation from the available experimental data for the 2353 nuclei with $Zge8$ and $Nge8$ can be reduced to 128 keV, which provides the most precise mass model from machine learning approaches so far. Moreover, the extended KRR approach can avoid the risk of worsening the mass predictions for nuclei at large extrapolation distances, and meanwhile, it provides a smooth extrapolation behavior with respect to the odd and even extrapolation distances.
The mean-square charge radii of $^{207,208}$Hg ($Z=80, N=127,128$) have been studied for the first time and those of $^{202,203,206}$Hg ($N=122,123,126$) remeasured by the application of in-source resonance-ionization laser spectroscopy at ISOLDE (CERN). The characteristic textit{kink} in the charge radii at the $N=126$ neutron shell closure has been revealed, providing the first information on its behavior below the $Z=82$ proton shell closure. A theoretical analysis has been performed within relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov and non-relativistic Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approaches, considering both the new mercury results and existing lead data. Contrary to previous interpretations, it is demonstrated that both the kink at $N=126$ and the odd-even staggering (OES) in its vicinity can be described predominately at the mean-field level, and that pairing does not need to play a crucial role in their origin. A new OES mechanism is suggested, related to the staggering in the occupation of the different neutron orbitals in odd- and even-$A$ nuclei, facilitated by particle-vibration coupling for odd-$A$ nuclei.